Page 63 of Royal Flush

“You won’t know where and neither will your wife. Only I’ll know. And I will keep her as long as I find it necessary.” I could see a flip in his thinking.

“You are fucking out of your mind. I will not turn my daughter over to you under those conditions. You’re nothing but a pompous kid who thinks his shit doesn’t stink.”

The look on his face was enough to fuel my rage to an uncontrollable point. But his words just tossed gasoline onto the situation. Violence? I wasn’t immune nor did I fear any ramifications.

Perhaps that’s why I nearly turned over the coffee table before lunging forward, pitching the man against the wall. While I still wanted nothing more than to wrap my hand around his throat, squeezing the life out of him, I held back. Still, controlling my anger wasn’t my strong suit.

At least the man had the decency to be terrified, dropping his coffee cup as he quivered in fear.

“I’m going to provide you with a decent piece of advice. Take it or leave it, but both your life and that of your daughter just may depend on accepting it. Don’t underestimate me, Justin. Or my family. Whatever happened with you and my father will be discovered. And when I do, if you betrayed him in any way, you will suffer the consequences.”

CHAPTER 16

Braxton

Consequences. What would life be without them?

Now I was grinning, as if having the time of my life. Talk about being pompous. This man was one of the most arrogant sons of bitches I’d ever met. “Do you understand me?”

The second he hesitated, I did decide to wrap my hand around his scrawny throat. It took every ounce of control I had not to snap his neck.

Both of us heard commotion, Jade running into the room. “Justin. What is going on here?”

“We’re fine, Jade. Just a bit of a disagreement.” I answered the question, turning my head and giving her the kind of look indicating she didn’t want to be a part of this.

Fortunately, Justin threw up his hand, backing my suggestion.

She was befuddled, darting her eyes back and forth, a little anger showing. Perhaps she had more of a backbone than I’d originally believed. Five seconds later, she turned and rushed from the room.

I returned my attention to the man, holding a pretty nasty glare. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Do. You. Understand?”

“Fine. Yes. Okay. Yes.”

A part of me wasn’t eager to let go but I forced myself to, patting his face and backing away. This meeting wasn’t what I’d hoped but at this point, I needed to ruffle his feathers so whoever he was working with slithered into the open. If only it were that easy.

A few tense moments passed.

“What should I know about your daughter other than she has an innate ability to escape her bodyguards?”

Justin continued to remain stressed. I had a feeling he was thinking about everything I’d told him, troubled by the information I seemed to know. Was I winging part of it?

You bet, but I knew men like him. They followed a type of diagram that seemed almost identical. I suppose there were those who could shove me into the same category, but I still liked to think of myself as special.

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“While I understand you’ve been a busy man over the years, there must be something. Perhaps at some point it will help me locate her if she could be stupid enough to vanish.” Which I had no doubt she would try again. It seemed escapism was in her nature but after meeting her father, I couldn’t say I blamed her.

I also had to admit I wanted to know if he cared about his daughter at all. Watching him intently was like opening a book for the first time. His features softened, his eyes glassing over. Maybe there was some hope for the cold asshole after all.

“My daughter has always been a little troublemaker but not in an evil way. She just wanted attention. Her mother and I were so busy all the time. She grew up with a nanny for several years, a couple years spent in private school, which she loathed. She even ran away from the campus. It was a huge deal. She managed to scale the roof of a building, using a gutter and downspout system to make her way to the ground just to attend some concert. She was lucky she wasn’t killed. The girl is fearless, full of the need for adventure. The strange thing is that I used to be exactly like her, not that I could ever mention that to her.” He took a few minutes to remember and laugh.

I remained quiet, allowing him to reminisce. It was funny in a family that it often took near tragedy before someone truly understood what their behavior had done.

“Anyway. My daughter is brilliant. She has several degrees, although she’ll only tell you about a couple of them. All by the time she was twenty-three.”

“Anything personal I should know or that others know about her?”

He lifted his head, staring at me intently. “You’re worried the near abduction is just the beginning.”

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